Living Car Free - How I would spend my tax rebate this year....

I had this discussion with a Republican-leaning friend.

Friend: "Why wouldn't a tax rebate be beneficial to the economy?"
Me: "That depends on how you spend the dollars. Buy a big screen TV and we lose. Do something beneficial with it and we all win."

After thinking about it some more, I propose one of these:
1) Instead of buying a brand new bike, look around for an antique from the 80s or 90s and spend some money on it. Get it repainted, have the local LBS do some good repairs on it.

2) Have a local carpenter install a locally built,energy efficient window in my house.

Both of these would pump money into the economy. The benefit of the bike is that it would satisfy my undying urge to get a nice Japanese frame from the 1980s. :)

What would you do with this loose cash?

What would you do with this loose cash?


I'm not counting on getting anything, of course, but if I do it will go toward shipping costs, a flight, or paying off my tuition.

Was there any noticeable benefit to our economy from the last one? If not, it's stupid to repeat it.

I think the next one might be a tax cut instead of a rebate. It might amount to about $20 a week more on the average worker's paycheck.

If so, I'll use it to get back on my feet financially after being on medical leave, then on moving expenses for a new home.

After that, I'll probably spend the $20 on good food. Some weeks it'll be a nice dinner in a restaurant. Other weeks it'll be a feast cooked at home for good friends. But if Obama makes me fat, I'm not voting for him in 2012!

The last rebate did nothing and I think it's kind of sick to encourage people to go out and buy junk. If I get anything it'll go into savings or bike parts.

1) Instead of buying a brand new bike, look around for an antique from the 80s or 90s and spend some money on it.
I did that with a 1970's Coppi and I love the result.

I've had so many friends loose their jobs of late. I don't need be selfish. All we do is buy crap from China anyway.. I'd rather help my family and friends out, by having unemployment extended.. With the present economic climate. Unemployment should be at least by one year.. Maybe two.. If we get this unneeded gift, I should upgrade my touring bike. That's an eco friendly way to cut oil consumption. And, bikes. that's one of the few items that just might be American made.?.?.

I've had so many friends loose their jobs of late. I don't need be selfish. All we do is buy crap from China anyway.. I'd rather help my family and friends out, by having unemployment extended.. With the present economic climate. Unemployment should be at least by one year.. Maybe two.

I think the federal government should give most of the stimulus money directly to the 50 state governments. States could spend it on unemployment, retraining, education, medicare, SCHIP, infrastructure, etc. These state administered programs directly assist the neediest people, and also would quickly stimulate the economy by increasing both consumer and government spending.

Does this make me a Republican? :eek:

Oh...they should give a little bit extra to Michigan, because we're really hurting bad. Even so, we've always balanced our budget--unlike a much more prosperous state on the west coast who will go nameless here. :innocent:

I've had so many friends loose their jobs of late. I don't need be selfish. All we do is buy crap from China anyway.. I'd rather help my family and friends out, by having unemployment extended.. With the present economic climate. Unemployment should be at least by one year.. Maybe two.. If we get this unneeded gift, I should upgrade my touring bike. That's an eco friendly way to cut oil consumption. And, bikes. that's one of the few items that just might be American made.?.?.

Very few unless you are buying custom built...and even then the components will be imported.

Stimulus checks will do little to nothing to help the current economy. It will take a major shift in trade, manufacturing and consumer attitudes. We have been digging this hole for over 30 years and we aren't going to get out of it overnight.

Aaron:)

Two of my three bikes , I thought US made, Wahoonc.. Klein and Surly.. I thought Wisconsin and Chicago products... No.?.. now, I'd be disappointed. . The manual credits US cities as the headquarters of both Klein and Surly.

Surly is headquartered in Minneapolis I believe. It's an American firm, but the bike frames are manufactured in Taiwan from US designs. So a small portion of the bike, its design, is US made. I think that's about it. Most of the components would be Asian as well.

I should have been less naive.

Tax cuts/rebates are to encourage people to spend as spending lends to GDP, revenue for retailers, etc.

Not sure how buying stuff from China affects things. Lower US GDP, but might raise GNP. Eh, international trade is confusing.

Oh...they should give a little bit extra to Michigan, because we're really hurting bad. Even so, we've always balanced our budget--unlike a much more prosperous state on the west coast who will go nameless here. :innocent:

From what I know, states are required to balance their budgets. If you are referring to CA, I'm pretty sure they've always balanced their budget. Sadly, I can name quite a few states that as of two months ago were looking in the red, including Michigan and CA.

Two of my three bikes , I thought US made, Wahoonc.. Klein and Surly.. I thought Wisconsin and Chicago products... No.?.. now, I'd be disappointed. . The manual credits US cities as the headquarters of both Klein and Surly.

Klein was built in the US at one time, but no longer, ditto Trek, Schwinn, Huffy and a host of others. AFAIK Surly has never been built in the US. The companies may have headquarters here, the bikes may be designed here but that is about it. Also AFAIK there is no mass production of any bikes going on in the US, just the higher end semi custom and full custom stuff.

Aaron:)

From what I know, states are required to balance their budgets. If you are referring to CA, I'm pretty sure they've always balanced their budget. Sadly, I can name quite a few states that as of two months ago were looking in the red, including Michigan and CA.

I believe that California is preparing to ask the federal government for a bailout in order to balance its budget. Despite being in our eighth year of recession, Michigan never did that. Yet.

CA has it worst based on what their economy is structured around. IIRC, 21% of default on mortgages are in CA. Or was it 51%? It was an idiotic number...

In other news, Zimbabwe now has newly minted trillion dollar bills!!!!! Worth about an Andrew Jackson here.

If you are talking about my Federal tax return, what I'm getting will be going towards polishing off what's left of my debt. If we were to receive another "stimulus" rebate, I think I would invest it in local bonding for passenger rail projects.

I guess the question is about discretionary consumer spending? I've been renovating my old computer hardware & software. Computer parts are the cheapest I've ever seen. Linux runs old Windows and DOS software not perfectly, but acceptably good.

I started out just trying to get my old midi music stuff working again (like Band-In-A-Box). That was fun, so it turned into a bigger project.